Political prisoner
A political prisoner, also a political prisoner, is a person who is in custody due to political or ideological reasons. This extends not only to persons who are detained for crimes of opinion or in the respective country of banned political activities, but to all cases in which political affiliations or political activities of the prisoners had significant influence on the sentencing.
Stefan Trechsel, Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Zurich and former President of the European Commission on Human Rights defines political imprisonment, among other things, that they, for example, to persons, for which the penalties, as measured by the offense, failed for political reasons disproportionately high ( refer ). Or on prisoners who were abused for political reasons or did not receive appropriate legal assistance.
The Euro Europe sees a person brought to their freedom as political prisoners, when one of the following conditions is met:
- The arrest violates fundamental guarantees enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, especially freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of assembly and freedom of association
- The arrest was made for purely political reasons, without a crime has been committed
- Was the length or circumstances of detention are political motives obviously disproportionate to the offense of which the person is suspected of or found guilty
- The person is treated for political motives in comparison to other detainees in a discriminatory manner
- The detention is the result of an obviously unfair trial may be accepted at the political motives of state power
The determination of whether a particular person is classified as a political prisoner, is often controversial and varies depending on the political point of view. From west - democratic point of view such prisoners are understood as political prisoners in general, who have been imprisoned for their opposition to a dictatorial regime ( dissidents ). According to this understanding are persons who, because of ideologically based violence (terrorism ) in custody, are not considered to be political prisoners.
The ICCPR includes in Article 19 and 26 of a conviction because of political views and guarantees all people the right to free speech. Accordingly, a provision of political imprisonment of international law, which is why the term has become a political rallying cry. In connection with the conviction of members of the Red Army Faction for membership in a terrorist organization, was spoken in the JVA master home detainees in the 1970s in the Federal Republic of Germany by RAF sympathizers of "political prisoner ".
The distinction between political and legitimate prisoners is not clearly quite positivistic basis because almost all States have the detention, who are criticized from the outside as political, covered by such criminal offenses. Whether a prisoner is a political, It is therefore usually assessed only in that the legitimacy of the detention underlying law is evaluated based on a positive standard.
In many countries, political prisoners had historically a privileged status compared to "ordinary" criminals.
In Germany up to the end of the Weimar Republic were not convicted of political offenses sentenced generally to imprisonment or penal servitude, but to imprisonment, which was considered less defamatory and had generally exhibit even better prison conditions.
In the Nazi era political prisoners were subjected to increasing repression. At the same time came an increasing number of people for political offenses or even just because of their origin in the concentration camps. Especially at the beginning of World War II, the number of death sentences rose steadily.
In the GDR political prisoners were often subjected to repression by the prison staff as well as measures of the so-called " Operational Psychology " by the National Security, which too numerous documented physical and psychological health effects, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder, led.
Organizations working for political prisoners, in particular, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Federation of ligues des droits de l' Homme.